SANTA CLARA — As the first player on the U.S. Squash national team to compete in a hijab, 12-year-old Fatima Abdelrahman is aware that her presence is a statement of sorts. Currently ranked fifth in the country for her age group, she’s been competing since she was five and wearing the hijab in competitions since she was 11.

“To be able to wear the hijab and still play squash and still make it to the national team with everyone else, it felt good,” she said. “Not that it holds me back, of course, but I’ve never seen anyone do it, and to be the first one doing it just feels good.”

But as the Santa Clara native traveled to Toronto for her first tournament with the national team, she did not expect that her decision to wear the hijab would thrust her into the center of a controversy, after an Air Canada agent forced her to remove the scarf while she waited to board a plane at San Francisco International Airport with her teammates.

The Aug. 1 incident sparked outrage online, and even drew the attention this week of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, who tweeted her “solidarity” with Fatima.

“This is unacceptable!” Omar tweeted Thursday, referencing a story about the Air Canada incident that appeared in the Canadian press. “Can’t imagine how traumatic this must be for her and her parents.”

This is unacceptable! Can’t imagine how traumatic this must be for her and her parents.

Yet despite the attention, Fatima and her family said they are still looking for answers — and a public apology — from Air Canada for what they described as blatant racial profiling of a young Muslim girl traveling without her relatives for the first time.

“I felt alienated from the rest of my team, because the rest of my team breezed right in without a problem,” Fatima said in an interview this week.

Fatima Abdelrahman, 12, center, and her older sister, Sabreen, 19, during an interview with this news organization at their Santa Clara home. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

Sitting next to her older sister at the family’s home in Santa Clara, Fatima recalled the incident, describing how a male agent had stopped her just before she boarded the plane — after she had gone through the TSA security screening — and told her to remove the hijab.

“The agent at the gate told me, ‘You need to take that off,’” she said. “I said, ‘What, exactly?’ And he pointed at [my hijab] and I said, ‘No, I can’t.’”

The agent insisted, Fatima said, telling her the airline needed to verify her identity with her passport picture, which had been taken before she started wearing the hijab at age 11. She objected, pointing out that the scarf did not cover her face.

At that point, Fatima said, a second Air Canada employee joined the gate agent, bringing a female agent who led Fatima to the corner of the jet bridge and again told her to remove her hijab.

“I told her, ‘I feel like this is kind of an open space, is there a room?’” Fatima recalled. “Even though I asked for a room, she said no, you’ll be fine.”

Worried that she would miss her flight, Fatima said she eventually gave in.

“I quickly took it off and she didn’t really look up,” Fatima said. “She just glanced at the passport and didn’t really look at me. And then she said, ‘Okay, go.’”

“Semi-panicked” and unable to see her teammates, Fatima rushed to make it on the plane while putting her hijab back on.

“The scarf was still on my face and I was trying to pull it back and I couldn’t see where I was going,” she said. “I’m trying to grab my passport and my backpack and put my hijab back on at the same time.”

In the moment, Fatima added, it “definitely” felt like racial profiling.

Once on board, Fatima called her mother and texted other family members to tell them about the incident, prompting her sister, Sabreen Abdelrahman, to send a tweet calling the airline out for its treatment of a young Muslim woman.

“Thx for ruining her experience as the first U.S. National Team Squash player in Hijab + her first time traveling alone,” the 19-year-old UC Berkeley student wrote.

The tweet quickly went viral, gaining 5,400 likes and 2,100 retweets as people voiced support for Fatima and outrage over what appeared to be another incident of Muslims facing discrimination while traveling.

“I wanted people to see it so they realize that these kinds of things happen, because some think it doesn’t happen,” Sabreen said this week. “I also wanted to put pressure on Air Canada so if more people saw it and started saying they’re going to boycott them or calling them out for being racist, then it would hopefully pressure them into making a change.”

According to a 2018 report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, incidents of anti-Muslim bias increased by 17% between 2016 and 2017, following President Donald Trump’s signing of his initial executive order banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries. Of the 2,599 incidents CAIR recorded that year, nearly a fifth took place in an air, bus or train terminal.

Air Canada did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the incident with Fatima. The airline has communicated privately with the family in emails, which the Abdelrahmans provided to this news organization.

“We recognize you and your sister’s disappointment with the identification check that was done for her travel to Canada,” Air Canada customer service manager Jenna Bennett wrote in an initial email to Sabreen. “Air Canada must comply with Canadian laws and regulations, which require us to compare a passenger’s entire face with the photograph shown on the travel document used prior to boarding the aircraft.”

“Should one of our passengers wear religious or cultural headwear, as many do, we recognize the importance of respecting their right to privacy and any necessary identification check is to be done discreetly and in a private area,” Bennett added.

Sabreen and her father, Magdy Abdelrahman, said this week that Air Canada’s initial response regarding its conduct at SFO appeared to contradict the airline’s own actions, pointing out that Fatima’s hijab does not cover her face, and that her request to remove the scarf in a private setting was apparently denied.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Air Transport and Security Authority said that, while they were not involved in this incident, passengers are allowed to undergo security screenings without removing head coverings worn for religious reasons. TSA said it does not direct airlines to conduct security screenings at the gate, nor does it require the removal of religious head coverings during screening.

A portrait of Fatima Abdelrahman, 12, at her Santa Clara home on Aug. 16, 2019. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

After Fatima — and her hijab — boarded a flight back to the U.S. from Toronto without incident, her father, Magdy Abdelrahman, emailed Air Canada demanding a further explanation of its policies, as well as a public apology for its treatment of his 12-year-old daughter.

“Fatima just retuned back yesterday and was not asked to remove her scarf at Pearson Airport, so Air Canada either broke the Canadian law yesterday or was racist on Thursday, which one is it?” he wrote.

He also asked that the airline make a donation to the children of Jordan and Andre Anchondo, a couple killed in this month’s mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Authorities are investigating that attack as a hate crime.

“While I obviously am not directly blaming Air Canada for that tragedy, but what your agent did at SFO is a seed for hate-spreading that needs to be stopped at all levels,” he wrote.

Air Canada replied with a fuller apology to Fatima. “I agree that this could have been handled better and I want to personally assure you that we are using your feedback to ensure improvements are made,” Bennett, the airline customer service manager, wrote.

The email did not specifically mention the incident, however, or provide any details about steps the airline has taken since. Magdy said he is still waiting for Air Canada to address the issue of racial profiling, including by making a public statement, and by making changes to its boarding practices. He said he has also reached out to CAIR’s California chapter to discuss possible legal action against the airline.

“I want to feel genuinely that they are actually sorry for this and they are trying to make a change,” he said. “In my mind, I don’t know if they are racists coming from the whole company or just one isolated incident. Maybe that agent was just culturally insensitive. But everything so far indicates no — it’s actually pure racism.”

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